My Immortal
by Darth Rane
Summary: The Enterprise answers the distress signal of a crippled transport ship, and find only one survivor aboard: a Romulan woman claiming to have just witnessed the death of her home planet. First-person, told from survivor's POV.
1. The End

**This is a story idea I have been kicking around since the _Star Trek: Countdown_ comic came out. Mandana, Nero's wife, had, like, three panels with him, and yet she is the one who motivates him to destroy Vulcan. How can such a bland, undeveloped character be the fuel to Nero's fire? In the follow up comic, Nero, she got a bit more development (two lines)...but is still no more interesting than a piece of cardboard. So this idea was born: to give Nero's wife a character, who I will probably take many liberties with since she says three lines in the comic. :x **

**I only have one chapter done, but if it gets enough interest, I'll continue. :D Promise promise. (This means review, please. :D)**

**I DO NOT OWN: Star Trek, or Mandana by extension. They belong to Paramount, blabbity blabbity blah, on with the story.**

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><p>It is chaos all around me. Screams fill the recycled air, and the atmosphere is thick with terror and pain. I hear the cries of the other refugees, and know mine must be among them. How can it not? Outside the dingy windows of the evac shuttle, we have just seen our beloved <em>ch'Rihan<em> blown to bits. Torn to pieces by an exploding star, killing everyone we know with it. Hence the heart-shredding grief.

The supernova continues on its path of destruction, wiping out the other planets and satellites in the Romii system, scattering our civilization to the stars. The shockwave from the star slams into our retreating shuttle, catching the small craft broadside and sending it spinning out of control through space. Warning klaxons scream and red lights flash incessantly, adding to the bedlam. Thus the terror.

I am crouched in a corner, my arms covering my head and my knees tucked beneath me, praying to every deity imaginable to save us. Save me. Save my unborn child. Somehow get us out of this mess we're in. But the Elements either do not hear me, or have abandoned the Rihannsu, because the end doesn't come. Not for a long while. And when I am at last whisked away from the hellish conditions of the small refugee transport, it is at the hands of the ship's collapsing infrastructure, more precisely a large metal rebar, traveling at an almost lethal velocity. I only have time to curl myself around my pregnant belly before being thrown into unconsciousness as it strikes the side of my head.

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><p>I don't know how long I float beneath the surface of awareness, but when at last I do come up for air, I am at first unaware that I have done so. Everything is so quite and dark and still, a far cry from the chaotic mess I recall.<p>

The pain is what tells me I'm awake. My brain is the victim of such a brilliant concussion that any light at all would have sent me into a fit; I am grateful for the darkness. I can feel a warm wetness on the side of my head where the beam struck my temple. My shoulders ache, my legs and arms are cramped, but I am otherwise unharmed. I am, however, trapped. Sometime during my unconsciousness, a large bulkhead fell and became wedged between the walls, pinning me beneath it. It is all but impossible to move from my horribly uncomfortable position with the large sheet of metal inhibiting my movements. My first order of business is throwing off the troublesome bulkhead.

Bracing my shoulders on either side of the corner that I'm currently trapped in, I lift my palms to the smooth underside of the sheet and struggle to shift the load. It doesn't budge. I try once more, shifting so that my hands are braced against the ground and my shoulders are pushing up on the sheet, with the same results. It is abundantly clear that I will not be able to escape my prison alone.

"Help!" I call out, hoping one of the other refugees is in a position to help me. The cry is met only with the echo of my own voice. A feeling of uneasiness trickles into my mind, sending ice water down my spine. Surely there must be some other person who is conscious and capable of a verbal acknowledgement. I shout out again, straining my ears for the slightest sound that might indicate someone else is awake. Or alive.

There is no response.

Uneasiness quickly changes to mounting panic. I try to control my wild emotions, but my professional training abandons me. I attack the bulkhead with a hysterical energy, screaming the entire time. _I can't be alone on this ship, someone else has to be alive. They'll hear me, they'll find me, and they'll rescue me. We'll be alright. They can't all be—_

I don't allow myself to think the word. I don't want to consider that I may be the last Rihannsu alive. The supernova can't have killed us all! I can't be all alone! _All alone..._I freeze suddenly. A new kind of terror grips me when I remember the one being who's life I can readily assure myself of. And the fact that I haven't felt a sign of that life since before unconsciousness. _Oh Elements, no!_

My hand flutters to my belly, searching a sign of life from my son. _He has to be alive, he can't have died, please Elements let him have survived..._I wait an agonizingly long time. It could have only been a few moments, but it seems like hours. Tears bud in my eyes and my lower lip quivers. It seems he _hasn't_ made it...

And a second later I feel a sound kick against my palm. Instantly I collapse against the wall, tears of relief streaming down my dirty face. _Thank you, Elements._ The first bit of good news since my husband left ch'Rihan a month ago, whispering sweet promises of saving our home in my all-to-willing-to-listen ear. But the relief of knowing my son is alive is quickly replaced by another fear.

I boarded this refugee shuttle as a very last resort, when my husband didn't come back. Every doctor on any given planet would tell you it would be foolish to make a drastic location change so close to the birth of your child, and me being in the medical profession myself, I was extremely hesitant to get on the ship, but fear won out in the end and I boarded. Two days before my expected due date.

And now here I am, dangerously close to giving birth, alone and trapped on a dead ship.

For the millionth time since leaving the doomed ch'Rihan, I close my eyes and send my frantic prayers to the Elements.

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><p>I have no way of telling time on the ship, but I estimate at least four days pass. Hunger and thirst compound the headache from the concussion I received. I do eventually manage to get my legs out from the cramped position underneath me, but I have no way to stretch them beneath the bulkhead and my discomfort grows.<p>

I expend most of my energy in the first day, fighting a losing battle against the sheet of metal on top of me. It does not move, remaining as unyielding as the mountains ringing the proud ch'Rihan city of Mhiessan—no, that analogy is all too inaccurate now, with pieces of Eilariv Mountain scattered through space. Regardless of the tactless comparison, the bulkhead remains in place, and I am unable to move it. The second day is spent either in unrestful sleep or prayer, and by the third and fourth days I have no fight or energy left to do even that. My mind is a fog. I am vaguely aware that my son may come at any moment, but I waive professional thought and mark that awful scenario as impossible. Improbable. It won't happen. My child and I will die together, and when I reach Vorta Vor I will see his face. But not before. Any other time that thought would be appalling, seeing as four days ago I was frantic to reassure my self of his survival, but just now, in this moment, the thought is comforting. I have just about resigned our lives to that fate when the Elements decide to remind me that they won't let me go peacefully.

At first I think it is just my body begging for food, that small lurch in my abdomen. After all, I can't remember the last time I ate. I pay no mind to it. Nor do I the second time, when it happens an hour or so later, or the third, when it happens an hour after that. But the fourth strange lurch brings me back to reality. Of course I couldn't have expected my son to wait for rescue, or death, before coming. I should be surprised he's waited this long. Still, I try to think up any other explanation for the cramps. But with the fifth contraction, my denial melts away and all that's left is the now-familiar feeling of fear. Fueled only by adrenaline and empowering hysteria, I attack my prison with renewed vigor.

It is amazing what desperation will do. After only ten minutes of clawing and kicking at the immovable bulkhead, I manage to get my arms and shoulders through the small space between it and the wall. Unfortunately, that space is minuscule, and my middle is quite large, with no hope of following my upper half out. The situation is hopeless. If my body had any ounce of moisture left in it, I am sure I would've cried, but as is I only feel a stinging at the corners of my eyes. A wordless cry of fear, pain, and frustration scrapes the lining of my throat raw, a release of all the pent-up emotion of the past four days.

_What did I ever do to deserve this?_ I think, falling limp against the bulkhead as another contraction passes. They are coming sooner, less than half an hour apart, and lasting longer. I am about to give up hope when I hear the impossible: a voice.

It's a far-away voice, and the words are indistinguishable. In fact, it's so faint that at first I am unsure if I've actually heard it. Maybe, in my terror, I am hallucinating and imagining what I desperately want to hear. But, even if the voice was just a figment of my imagination, for sanity's sake, I have to try and get its attention.

"Help!" I shout, "Help! Please!" My voice cracks, spent from the animalistic scream of moments before. Am I loud enough? Was I heard? I want to leap for joy when I hear the same voice again, still very far away, but undoubtedly a _voice_. Thank the Elements! I shout again and again to the mystery voice, and every so often pause to listen for it's responses. I hear it only twice more, but each time it's getting closer. I am so sure rescue is near, and not a moment too soon; I feel another contraction, this one only fifteen minutes from the last.

A few minutes later I hear footsteps, and this time I can make out individual words.

The language is familiar, but I can pick up very few words. Federation Standard, most probably a human. Normally I might play out an encounter with a human cautiously. But I don't think the situation I'm in falls under the category of "normal".

"Help!" I call out in Standard (at least, I hope it's Standard; it has been years since I ever thought about the language). My rescuer comes into view then, ducking through a collapsed passageway and appearing amidst the sea of wreckage. The entire ceiling is just about gone, no more than random pockets of exposed, sparking wires, and pieces of the ceiling's paneling cover the floor, from the wall where I am to the large dirty windows that offer a panoramic view of space—when one is standing, that is. From my uncomfortable vantage point on the floor, I can see only a few pitiful stars through the corner of the clearsteel.

My rescuer is silhouetted against the window, but I can tell right away he is human. And even in the dim light, the arrow-shaped badge on his chest glitters. _Starfleet_. But who else was I expecting? My own kind?

The man scans the field of debris, and his eyes finally land on me, pinned into the corner by the damned bulkhead. I can't see his expression, but I have to wonder what he thinks of the dirty, hysterical Rihannsu woman staring back at him. Stupidly, I feel embarrassed about my current appearance and suppress the urge to smooth down my wild mess of auburn curls. Instead, I reach a pleading hand towards him.

"Help," I mouth, unable to produce even a hoarse whisper. Thirst and hysteria have taken their toll on my voice. The human is already moving, grabbing one side of the bulkhead and pulling at it. I press my shoulder once more against the unyielding trap, but even with our combined efforts it doesn't budge. He steps back, and for a moment I believe he is leaving me. My hand flies out of its own accord, latching itself around his wrist. I don't want to be alone again. The man, his face in shadows, says something in a calming voice, something along the lines of "help". That seems to be the only Standard word I remember.

But I am physically and mentally incapable of releasing my vice grip on his arm. He must realize this, because he leans back against the wall beside my prison-bulkhead, where I can hold him without stretching too far, and flips open what can only be a communicator. I hear him say a few things into the box, but only recognize one other word: _Spock_.

In the fried recesses of my mind, I don't find the name at all misplaced in the current settings. It was common on ch'Rihan, especially in the final days of the planet. I remember my husband, on the night of his departure, telling me Spock had the answers to the supernova's threat, and was all ch'Rihan needed to survive...

I am tired. I am hungry and I am thirsty, and above all I am in pain. The memory of happier days is intoxicating, like a numbing balm on all of my discomfort. I struggle to bring back more of the memories, needing to see the faces of my father and my brothers and, most of all, my husband...

I must have been fading out, going into shock (a state that is way overdue), because the Starfleet human is suddenly crouching in front of me, the one hand held in my loosening grip gently holding my face.

"Hey, stay with me, we're going to get you out of here," he says in a calm, encouraging voice. "You're going to be alright. Just hang on a little bit longer." Later I will find it odd that the universal translator took so long to kick in, but at the moment I don't question it. I nod numbly, wincing as another contraction takes hold of my body. They are so close together now, so terrifyingly close...

At last Spock, the help the Starfleet human ordered in, arrives. I think my husband was right when he said Spock was all the Rihannsu needed. After much grunting, grip readjusting, and help from their phasers, the man and the Vulcan manage to haul the bulkhead off of me. I try to help, but in my deteriorating condition, I know I don't do much. Once the large piece of metal, which has largely been supporting me these past four days, is gone, I realize I don't have the strength to stand, or even hold myself up. I fall forward to the stained floor, curling around the lump in belly that I know won't be there much longer. One hand still manages to hang on to the human.

Almost before I hit the floor, I feel strong hands grip my arms, trying to gently pull me to my feet. But as they try to get me upright, a splitting pain, worse than anything I have ever felt, tears up my spine. I cry out and double over, my face contorting in agony. My hand clamps tigher around the human's. It's then the two Starfleet officers realize in just how critical condition I am, on the edge of unconsciousness and in the progressed stages of labor. I hear the human shouting into his communicator, his voice just a bit frantic, asking for a man he calls McCoy.

After that, I reach the threshold of my ability to concentrate or focus. Everything is a blur of color and pain, sweeping me along to some unknown destination, none of which i try to understand. I know a third man has joined us, I feel the strange buzz of a transporter, but I can't piece any of it together. And as I am whisked along in this nightmare state, through brilliant white halls filled with the faces of a hundred different beings, the only coherent thought I have, the only thing I am absolutely _certain_ of, is:_ I'm safe_.

Throughout it all, I don't let go of the human's hand.

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><p><strong>Note: this is also heavily influenced by Diana Duane's <em>Rihannsu<em> saga. That's were some of the names come from; I'll be using ch'Rihan and Rihannsu instead of Romulus and Romulan. :) **


	2. Blink

**I had this chapter done three days ago, but was too busy to post. Sorry 'bout that. =P**

**I don't own Star Trek (much as I'd like too). And though I am taking many creative liberties with Mandana, I don't own her, either. **

**Also, I love reviews. If you could review that would be amazing. I love feedback. :D Read away.**

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><p>Childbirth is the single most painful experience of my life. Caught between lucidity and oblivion, I am not so far gone that I don't perceive physical sensation, though I can't make much sense out of it. The one thing that keeps me anchored in consciousness is the human, who never leaves my side. I'm not sure if that is because he senses I need him, or the fact that my hand is so tightly clamped around his wrist, that to leave me means to leave his limb behind as well. I can almost imagine that, instead of some alien Federation officer, it is my husband, standing beside me where he belongs.<p>

After an eternity of pain, I experience one moment of clarity as the sound of a newborn's cry pierces the fog. _My_ newborn. My son. Hearing his first strangled cry is a welcome sound to my ears, and for one brief moment fills me with such elation I feel like I'm flying (a very good feeling, as opposed to many of the other sensations I've experienced the past week). And then exhaustion falls on me like a ton of bricks, and I black out.

When I wake up (hours later, I assume), I am all alone in the sickbay. Half of my professional mind is outraged at this fact. What kind of operation are these Federation types running! Were I in the position of the doctors on this Federation ship, I would not have left a traumatized patient all to her lonesome, no matter how brief a period. They know nothing about the circumstances under which I came here, or about my new crippling fear of being left alone. At the very least, the chief surgeon could have left one of his nurses in charge to ensure that I don't wake up and walk off.

But, despite this slip-up, I can't maintain any sort of anger at my rescuers. My body, which hasn't seen a drop of moisture in days, no longer cries out for water. Or food, for that matter. The other various pains I experienced on the evac shuttle are all gone, carried away by the strong medication I have received. And I am not tired. I feel as though I have slept for days (for all I know, I have). In short, I feel almost one-hundred percent again.

With my own body feeling fully repaired, I gingerly prop myself up on one elbow to get a better look at my surroundings. My impression of the sick bay is that it is small and white, until I see the archway leading to the main entrance. I figure I must be in just one pod of the entire medical bay. I am lying on the fourth of the five bio beds in this pod, far enough away that I can't see directly into the other ward. My only view is the a bland white curtain that covers the entrance and offers me a small bit of privacy.

Mine is the only occupied bed in the pod, which explains why the individual curtain around my bed isn't drawn. Above me I can hear the familiar beeping of machines monitoring my vitals. I recognize some of the other equipment scattered about the space, but most of it looks archaic. Almost as though I've been transported into a documentary about pioneer medicine. My first impressions of the Federation are not good ones. Yes, they rescued me, and yes, they have healed me, but it seems a miracle they managed even that with the ancient equipment before me. I frown and lean back against the bed, crossing my arms over my chest. I notice, also, that the clothing I boarded the evac shuttle with is gone, replaced by a starched white hospital gown.

My eyes continue to roam around the room, searching for some sort of color among the sterile blandness, but instead they find a cradle, directly across the room from my bed. At the same moment, my hand subconsciously moves to my now flat, childless belly. My original thought that I have been alone in the medical pod was wrong. Of course they leave my son with me. And despite myself, I smile. There is nothing I want more than to hold the infant in my arms, as the first and only memory I have of him is an ear-shattering cry.

I could call for assistance-I know that is what I _should_ do-but now that my life is in no danger, I will play my encounters with the Federation beings differently. And that means not relying on them for such a simple task as holding my baby. Keeping my eyes on the archway, I slowly push myself up out of bed. The irony of this situation is not lost on me; I remember a time when I would've given any patient who tried this an earful. After what I've been through, I know it isn't a wise idea to try to walk over and pick up my baby. But logic takes a backseat to emotional need just now, as I gingerly lower my feet to the ground.

The moment my hands release the bed, my legs give out and I drop to my knees on the tile. Only then do I remember that, upon being freed from my metal prison back on the evac shuttle, I was unable to stand. Not using your legs for almost a week really takes its toll. Nevertheless, I grit my teeth and push myself back up. It takes me a couple more tries before I can finally walk on my own, albeit a bit shakily. My eyes turn back to the entrance of the pod, half expecting to see one of the medical staff on the Federation ship glaring back at me from the curtain. I don't see anyone.

_This is _precisely_ why you don't leave traumatized patients alone._ I think, though I'm grateful no one has come in to yell at me yet. It takes me an embarrassingly long time to shuffle across the floor, and each time I stumble I flinch at the resulting noise, expecting someone to hear and come running. But no one shows up, so I continue on. And at last I take my final step and reach the cradle where I am positive my son has to be.

And glancing down into the small crib, the last few minutes of humiliating struggle become worth it. There lies my newborn, swaddled in blue and sleeping peacefully. A forest of dark hair covers his head. Even at his newborn age, I can't help but notice the resemblance to his father as I reach down and stroke his cheek with my finger. The infant sighs and snuggles deeper into his blankets.

"That was painful to watch," I hear a drawling voice say, his tone light-hearted. "Next time you might want to call for help. We don't bite." My head snaps up to see a human male in a blue uniform, leaning against the doorjamb with his arms crossed. I am surprised that I can recognize him as McCoy, the doctor who was called while I was slipping in and out of reality. His smile is disarming and good-natured, which puts me on alert instead of calming me down like he no doubt intended. Suspicion is a trait bred into Rihannsu, and I can't help but wonder if these Starfleet types have an ulterior motive to rescuing me. I can imagine my father and my husband, the few of my own kind who aren't put off by the idea of at least considering to negotiate with the Federation, telling me that the notion is ridiculous.

In my mind, Nero rolls his eyes and sighs theatrically. _You're such a cynic, Mandana. Try to be optimistic about something, for once. _His traditional line to me, whenever I brought up the dangers of mining and how I feared for his life every time he left on a tour in the Outmarches. More recently used when he told me he was going to put his trust in Spock to save our planet. I was in favor of taking what we needed to save ch'Rihan by force, and objected to the plan of negotionations, believing that trusting the Vulcan would be our downfall. And Nero smiled, kissed me gently, and said Spock was all the Rihannsu needed.

My stomach twists as I realize how wrong he was. Something went horribly awry with his plan, and perhaps my cynicism was justified. The image of my beloved home disintegrating beneath the brilliant fury of the Hobus supernova brings hot tears to my eyes. I blink furiously to clear them before facing the doctor.

I turn and straighten from my stooped position by the crib too fast, causing the blood to rush from my head to my feet. I am hit by a wave of dizziness, and I curse myself and my reaction as I sway on my feet. McCoy is by my side in an instant, gently grabbing my elbow to keep me upright and steers me towards the bed. I want to wave him off, tell him I'm capable of walking back myself, but I know I'm not. I've ignored common sense since waking up, and decide it's time to start listening to it. So I allow McCoy to help me back to the bio bed. Ulterior motives or not, he seems genuine in his concern. He leaves me on the bed and returns moments later with my son in his arms.

"See? Here to help." The doctor smiles down at me.

I don't acknowledge him as I take my son, holding him close to my chest. The boy yawns and squirms in his blanket. His sleep disturbed, he opens his eyes. I suck in a breath at their brilliant emerald color; that's one particular trait he seems to have inherited from me.

"What are you going to call him?" Doctor McCoy asks, standing by my shoulder. I consider not answering him; not because of my suspicions about his intent (what possible advantage could telling him the name of my son give the Federation?), but because I'm not sure I can talk around the lump in my throat. That supernova image is still very prevalent in my mind.

"He is named for his father," I say after a pause, when I'm sure I can speak without blubbering. "Oren." Then, taking the conversation in a completely different direction, I look up and meet the human's eyes. Something that I should have noticed upon first waking is just starting to raise alarms in my head: The fact that, aside from Oren, I am the only Rihannsu in sick bay. I remember waking up, alone on the shuttle, calling out and hearing no response. I think I know what it means, but I have to be absolutely sure. "Did you find any...any others on the shuttle? Did anyone else survive." I ask.

The doctor gives me a look that can only be described as sympathetic, though it seems to go much deeper than that. It is the expected response, and I know exactly what it means. "Then my son and I are the last of our race." I say, barely above a whisper. I look down at Oren, who is staring up at me with his large green eyes. One tiny hand has freed itself from the blankets and reaches for my face. I take it gently in one hand, caressing the small limb with my thumb. _The last of the Rihannsu._

"The last of your race?" McCoy says, raising an eyebrow and sounding confused. "Did something happen to Romulus?" My mouth thins into a line. Surely the Federation is not so uninformed that they don't know of the tragedy that has occurred on the other side of the Neutral Zone! The last I heard from my husband, he had a Federation escort to Vulcan! How do they not know that the Hobus star destroyed ch'Rihan!

"Are your people so misinformed they are unaware when an entire system of planets is obliterated mere light-years from your Federation space?" I snap.

The doctor's expression has gone from confused and sympathetic to one I cannot place. He pauses for a long moment, processing my words. At last he answers, in an inflectionless voice, "By a supernova, right?"

I look at him from the corner of my eye. "Yes."

My answer is met with silence, a longer pause than before. And throughout this pause, McCoy doesn't take his eyes off of me. I can almost see the wheels turning behind his grey-blue eyes. Once I realize he won't be saying anymore, I look away and turn back to Oren. His eyes are growing heavy-lidded.

"If you'll excuse me for just a moment, miss," the doctor finally says, his voice sounding detached. I sneak a glance upward to see him turn on his heel, a faraway look in his eyes, still wearing that odd expression. And then he's gone, and it is just Oren and I in the pod.

Before I have a chance to rekindle the fire about his negligence of leaving me alone, a young human woman wearing a pressed white uniform enters the pod. Her long corn-silk hair is pulled into a conservative bun at the nape of her neck, and a pleasant smile lights up her porcelain face.

She introduces herself as Nurse Chapel, and from the looks of her she seems to have just graduated from the Starfleet Academy. Politely, I tell her my name, which I had forgotten to tell McCoy. And he had forgotten to ask. We small talk for a while, but it is mostly her who carries on the conversation. I know she is here just to make sure I don't wander off, and I see no reason for her to hide that fact behind friendly words and a perfect smile. If anything, her kindly chatting is getting on my nerves. She acts as though my being in the sick bay is normal, that me being trapped, alone, on a shuttle, surrounded by hundreds of Rihannsu corpses for a week is normal, that the loss of everything in my life I've ever held dear is normal. I want to take her by the collar of her perfect white uniform and scream at her to shut up, but because Oren has fallen asleep in my arms I refrain. Instead I stare at the sheets of my bio bed, nodding politely in response to Chapel's drivel.

It is too long before before McCoy finally returns, a human in gold uniform trailing behind him. I recognize this man, as well; the human who found me on the evac shuttle, the first face I had seen in days. After four days pinned beneath a bulkhead, his face was the most welcome sight in the universe. Now, seeing him enter the sick bay wearing an expression that matches Doctor McCoy's, I want him to go away. Because no person with such a Vulcan-esque look can bear good news (unless the messenger is, in fact, a Vulcan). I have had enough bad news to last a life time. I don't need to hear anymore.

At a glance from McCoy, Chapel shuts up (thank the Elements) and stands at attention. The doctor dismisses her and she hurries off to perform other nursely duties. I am left with the two grave-looking men, and a feeling of uneasiness making a come back in the pit of my stomach.

"I am James Kirk, Captain of the U.S.S. _Enterprise_," the man in the gold uniform says. He looks young as well, though his eyes say he's seen more than the average adolescent human. "You know my chief surgeon, Doctor McCoy."

I nod. "And I am Mandana t'Keras," I answer, fixing my green gaze on the captain.

"I have a few questions to ask you, Mandana."

The captain pauses, as if waiting for me to say something. When I give no indication of a verbal response, he continues: "I'll just cut right to the chase then. Doctor McCoy tells me that you believe Romulus was destroyed."

Before I can angrily correct him that I saw my planet disintegrated outside the window of the evac shuttle, he holds up a hand and continues. "I'm not going to deny it didn't happen. The damage to the vessel you were found in is extensive enough to have come from a...a supernova. In fact, it would explain a great many things.

"If that's the case, then I have a lot to tell. But before I get to that, I need to know one thing." Here Kirk pauses again and looks at me intently. "Mandana, does the name 'Nero' mean anything to you?"

I blink when I hear the name, wondering how to respond. "The name Nero could belong to anyone." I say. They couldn't possibly be referring to my husband. There must be thousand of other beings bearing the name "Nero". The name itself on ch'Rihan is unusual, the common form being 'Oren'; for my husband, Nero was merely a nickname. Of course they aren't talking about him! It's just a coincidence...

"He was a Romulan, commander of the mining ship _Narada-_" Kirk continues, but stops when I suck in a sharp breath. At the mention of his vessel there is no doubt in my mind they are talking about _my_ Nero. And at that exact moment other pieces of information that I ignored before now loom in the front of my mind, seeming so obvious. I knew something was wrong before, but now I struggle to find something _right_. Spock is the Vulcan my husband said would save ch'Rihan. But ch'Rihan is dead. Spock is here. Nero is not here. _What does it mean?_ Subconsciously, I hold my son tighter to my chest.

"You know who I am talking about," Kirk says, looking me directly in the eye. I stare levelly back at him, trying to hide my unease and suspicions. _What happened? _

"Yes. I know him. The man you are referring to is Oren tr'Keras, more commonly known as Nero," I say in a monotone. "My husband."

The responses from the doctor and the captain are not reassuring. They both tense up, as though I might suddenly jump off the bio bed and attack them. As though I have suddenly become incredibly dangerous. If I was sure of my ability to walk, I would've taken Oren and ran. But weak as I am, I can only lie here, listening to words I don't want to hear.

"Is something wrong?" I ask, though their expressions have told me enough. McCoy looks away, seeming to have gained a sudden interest in the floor. He stares at it so intensely I begin to wonder why it doesn't burst into flames. Kirk doesn't change his stance.

"Mandana..." his tone has the awkward and sympathetic qualities I know all too well. I close my eyes, praying he doesn't say what I know he will. "I'm sorry to tell you, but your husband is dead."

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><p><em>The first time I ever saw my husband, he wasn't expected to survive. Mining accidents were notoriously nasty, and the cause of more fatalities than any other profession on ch'Rihan. Even military careers. Nero's particular mining accident wasn't any different. If anything, it seemed out of the ordinary with its gruesomeness. Everyone on staff in the medical center was amazed he had survived the transport to the planet. And, because everyone thought he was as good as dead anyway, no doctor wanted the job of telling the family that their loved one had passed on or the unique grief felt when one lost a patient. In terminal cases such as this, politics took over and the futile task of saving the doomed patient fell to the doctors at the bottom of the food chain.<em>

_At the time, that happened to be me. I was only a year out of the Rihannsu Imperial Academy of Medicine, the youngest of the seven female doctors in the entire complex. And the most loathed, seeing as the only reason that I had been accepted into the RIAM was because of my father, Nyril tr'Verraet, a senior member of the Senate. The Verraet House was famous for its controversial views that often contradicted the common beliefs. It was also well known that, similar to other Houses, every decision the Head of House made was for power gain or wealth increase. They saw my entry into RIAM as nothing more than a convoluted scheme to grab more status than the Verraet House already possessed._

_I had multiple aunts, uncles, and cousins with various levels of political power spread throughout the Empire. My sister, the eldest in the family, was in line to take my father's place on the Senate in due time. And my two brothers were senior centurions in the Fleet, filled with promise to move higher up the command chain. I was expected to follow in their footsteps and boost the power of my House. But, after my mandatory tour with the military at age twenty, and despite pressure on all sides to take up a career in politics, I made the decision to join the medical field. I realized during my tour that I had a ridiculous fear of heights, and by extension, flying in any space vehicle. On the other hand, as a child of politics, I had always found the issues boring, the social gatherings pretentious, and the other Heads of House insufferable. My life-long desire had been to help people, and I didn't see that possibility available in any other occupation. _

_Though my father did not completely approve of the career I had chosen, I was his youngest child and had him virtually wrapped around my finger. Anything I asked for, I got. So it was off to medical school for me, while Nyril scrambled to save face and find an explanation that would make my medical pathway a step up in Verraet House's power. Ridiculous as his excuse was, people bought it and I paid the price._

_I was accustomed to getting anything I wanted in life, so Academy life was a shock for me. I soon realized that, outside my father's sphere of influence, life was difficult. For the first time in my life I'd had to _work_ for something, and work hard. But I wanted this badly, and by the time I finished all the graduating exams, my degree in Rihannsu medicine was well-deserved. I wasn't at the top of my class, but I was pretty dang close. Then, despite my impressive academic career, the real world took every chance to douse me in cold reality. _

_Because of the House I came from, despite all the power in the Verraet name, the controversial opinions attached and Nyril's explanation for my unusual career choice made me the constant object of loathing. It took me forever to find a steady position in a lesser medical center, and even then I was at the bottom of the proverbial totem pole._

_So it was, on that fateful night, I arrived at Operating Theater Two, sterilized and determined to save the life of a man who was thought to be already gone. I can still see Nero lying on the gurney, pale as the walls of the theater, covered in more blood than I thought any Rihannsu had in his whole body. There were other personnel in the room, of course, and as a formality there was even a cosmetic surgeon on hand, on the slim chance the miner on the table survived. But I would be the one most impacted should the broken patient not survive._

_And he did. Just barely. His vitals were stabilized, but at so far beneath their optimal performance __levels that that status could change in a heartbeat. I attribute the success_—_if you could call it that_—_of the nerve-wracking operation more to Nero's stubbornness rather than any actual skill on my part. Sure, I did everything right by medical standards, but as doctor, I could only do so much to help the patient in the little time I was given. By all accounts, Nero should have died long before he went under the knife. And yet, ten hours, countless blood transfusions, and three cardiac revivals later, the man was out of the operating room and sent to the wing of the complex reserved for those patients who need more intensive care. He had made it this far, but nobody expected him to pull through the night. Including me._

_Along with trying to keep a doomed patient from dying, I had the unpleasant job of telling the family that the odds of said patient surviving more than a few hours were unfavorable. Waiting rooms were for patients only; the friends and family often times went home and waited for a comm call, or huddled on the lawn beneath the sprawling park-like grounds of the medical complex and waited for news on the condition of their loved one. The latter was more probable in cases as serious as this, and that was the first place I looked. I didn't have to go far out of the building before being accosted by frantic family members of patients, all begging for an update. I lifted my hands, asking for silence. A deathly hush fell over the crowd._

"_I am looking for the family of Oren tr'K_—_" I started, but didn't have a chance to finish before a young man and woman pushed their way forward, followed by half a dozen other Rihannsu. From the cut of their clothing, I identified them all as miners; all but the woman, who was dressed in civilian clothes and appeared to have just been dragged out of bed. Of all the people in the crowd, she looked the worst; her eyes were bloodshot puffy from crying, her hair was pulled into a bun so messy it resembled little more than a nest for a small rodent, and, judging by the green-bronze tint of her hands, she'd been wringing them for hours._

_The man she leaned against, a tall skinny fellow who reminded me more of a twig than a person, looked better, but not by much. His mop of hair hung like a dark curtain in front of his wide, worried eyes. He had one arm around the woman, holding her like his life depended on it. A brief survey of the other six showed they similar wore expressions of worry.. _

"_How is he?" the man holding the woman asked in a thick voice. I looked at the mob of other patient families, the ones who had attacked me upon leaving the medical complex, huddled in their respective groups and throwing glances our way. _

"_You'd better come inside," I told them, for the sake of patient confidentiality. The group of eight followed me into the indoor waiting area, which was all but abandoned at that time of night. Only the emergency ward was open, on the far side of the medical complex. I was alone with the eight friends and family of Nero._

_In my best empathetic voice, I informed the group of Nero's condition, and broke the news as gently as possible that he might not survive the night. The woman put her hand to her mouth and buried her swollen face in the jacket of the twig-man. A small hiccuped sob shook her body, though she tried to suppress it. The six miners behind the couple all seemed to be looking at the ground. The only one who didn't seem to be on the verge of tears was the scrawny bean-pole miner trying to console the crying woman. _

"_Can we see him?" he asked. The thickness from before was gone, and his expression was almost Vulcan in its detached manner. I shook my head._

"_In his condition, it would not be a wise idea for him to have visitors. The effect would most certainly be negative_—_"_

"_If he's not going to survive, where's the harm?" _

_I frowned slightly. "We don't _know_ that he won't survive. The odds are slim, but he's surprised us by making it this far. There is a chance he'll pull through."_

"_He'll make it. He has to," it took me a moment to realize the surprisingly strong voice came from the crying woman. She looked up, drilling me with such an intense stare I took a step back. "We've gotten through worse. But if he doesn't_—_" her voice faltered, but she pressed on, "_—_well, you know. I need to see him again."_

_She didn't need to add the word that ended her sentence for us all to know it was there: _"I need to see him again, alive." _The rest of the group murmured their assent. _

_The fact of the matter was, even if Nero hadn't been in such a critical state, I could easily have lost my job and ruined my already fragile career by allowing them in between visiting hours. But, were the roles reversed, I'd want to see my friend/brother/father/distant relative once more, just in case they didn't pull through. I exhaled through my nose, thinking. And I made a decision._

"_Alright, fine," I said at last. "But I can't let an entire mob of people up there to see him. I will allow _one_ person_. _The rest of you will have to wait outside_."

_Twig man looked back at the other six miners, then pointedly down at the women. It didn't take a genius to know she would be the one that the group of eight would send up. She detached herself from the man's side and I led her to the turbolift, while the others obediently exited to the waiting room. At the time, I thought allowing the woman (who I later found out to be Nero's sister) into his room was trivial. Should I not be caught in the act by one of my coworkers, this would not affect me in any dramatic way. I had no way of knowing that it would alter my life in ways I could have never foreseen._


	3. Unwell

**This update has been a long time in coming. DX School is kicking my butt. I won't be able to update as often as I like, and I deeply apologize. But I will try to post a new chapter as often as I can as the pace of the story picks up. Thank you for your understanding. And enjoy! :)**

**I do not own Star Trek. Sadly. :( **

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><p>It has been one week since my rescue. One week since the birth of my son, who has become the glue that keeps my shattered soul together. One week since I learned of my husband's death, at the hands of the very Federation that was supposed to save our people. One week since I learned the awful truth of why he was killed, and one week since I discovered the truth about where I am.<p>

I sit in the temporary quarters given to me on this starship, a vessel by the name of _Enterprise_. Space is short on the newly-christened flagship of the Federation, but they couldn't very well keep me in sickbay indefinitely. So I was thrown into this closet of a room, hardly big enough to stretch my arms in. The furnishings are simple; a bed in the center, a desk with a computer terminal in an alcove off to the side, a bureau built into the far wall. There are some luxuries as well, found in few other rooms onboard the ship (or so I'm told): a personal 'fresher, a quarter of the size of the actual room, but private nonetheless, and a small porthole just above the bed, giving me a clear view of the stars, which at present are distorted by _Enterprise_'s warp field. Currently, that porthole is hidden behind a thick curtain. Being on a starship is bad enough, but I don't need to see the endless, airless abyss we glide through. The entire space looks and smells brand new, despite it's antique design.

Not so antique in this era, though. Of all the information I have been spoon-fed by Jim Kirk and his officers, the fact that I am one hundred and fifty years in the past is one of the more difficult things to swallow. The rational part of my mind tells me it's impossible, but everything I see around me is evidence of their claim. The archaic sick bay, the bulky computers, the vintage Federation uniforms. Perhaps most glaring is the state of the Star Empire. Reports I have managed to glean from the Federation Interwebs are like holotexts of Rihannsu history from my academic days. I am indeed one hundred and fifty standard years in the past. Many would see this as a good thing; my home is alive and well, flourishing on the other side of the cold space known as the Neutral Zone. I admit, I did feel overwhelming joy when I first saw the fuzzy pictures of the Eisn system in the databanks of the _Enterprise_'s computers. But then, those same reports drove it home that it is not the ch'Rihan I knew. The progress that will happen in a century and a half is all but erased, and, should I return to the first planet of Eisn, I would be an alien among my own people.

That's where the Federation is planning to send me, I have no doubt. At the moment this great starship is enroute to the nearest Starbase, which is identified by a series of numbers and letters that mean little to me. There, an important official from Starfleet (a being whose name and title also mean little to me) will decide my fate. I plan on making the fact that I do not want to return to ch'Rihan, or any other Rihannsu world, very plain. Not only would the politics of the Empire make me a fish out of water, but the only employment I would be able to find without the backing of a powerful House (or any House at all) would be as a servant, or a slave, with the possibility of my son being sold away from me frighteningly real. The thought is repulsive, and I would rather make a home among the thousands of Federation species than become a bond-servant on ch'Rihan-not that the Federation will likely be an option to build a home, thanks to the actions taken against them by my late husband.

Nero was thrown back in time as well, though much farther than the tiny evac shuttle I was in. And in the year or so before my arrival, Nero (a man who never once raised his voice to me in the many years we were married) became a mass murderer, destroyed countless starships, and used black hole technology to devour the planet Vulcan. That he would turn against the Federation is hard enough to grasp, but that he managed to destroy an entire planet is impossible to wrap my mind around. When Captain Kirk told me about the atrocities my husband-_my_ _husband-_had committed, I could see his eyes calculating my reaction, no doubt wondering if I was of the same mindset as Nero. At the time I could only stare at him in shock and disbelief, completely unamused by what could only be a bad joke. I only accepted the truth once evidence (the bits that weren't top secret) was shown: the image of a Rihannsu, with his head shaved and marked with the typical tattoos of mourning, and dark brooding eyes I knew so well; a wicked-looking ship outfitted with long, bizarre attachments that, at its heart, was recognizable as my husband's familiar mining vessel; and lastly, the horrifying (and only recently declassified) image of a full-sized planet disappearing into a singularity, filmed courtesy of a shaky aft-mounted camera on the _Enterprise_'s hull. Once it finally sank in that those pictures were real, those events had happened, and that my husband was to blame for it all, I broke down. Again. I'd been doing that a lot lately.

My reaction satisfied Kirk enough, and seemed to put to rest any suspicions they might have had that I was plotting the destruction of more inhabited worlds. Doctor McCoy, who was against revealing all this to me in the first place, gave his captain an earful (using many words that the intradermal translator refused to render). On one hand I agreed with the doctor; I'd just lost my own planet, I didn't need to hear that my husband had gone and obliterated another one so soon after. This kind of excitement wasn't exactly healthy in my current shaky medical condition. On the other hand, I would have hated them for keeping the truth from me for any length of time. I did regain my composure rather quickly, and after another day of observation in sickbay, I was moved to the closet quarters.

That was eight days ago-on ch'Rihan, weeks were ten days long. The seven days' system will take some getting used to. I have had very limited contact with the personnel on the ship in that time. Other than the occasional short jaunt to sickbay for some check-up or another, I have confined myself to my room. The captain and his other officers tell me I am free to walk around the _Enterprise_ (within reason), but I'm sure it's just a common courtesy. Secretly they are relieved that the wife of a mass-murderer is keeping to her private quarters.

In this closet-space I have had plenty of time to think, and to sleep, and to grieve. There's been a lot of grieving; not a lot of sleeping. I wonder how long it will be before I'll be able picture Nero or ch'Rihan without bursting into tears. Just to close my eyes brings horrible images to mind; ch'Rihan reduced to spacedust, Vulcan swallowed whole, Nero with the blood of thousands, of _millions_, on his hands. With such pictures dancing behind closed eyes, it is hard to get any amount of rest. And as I get progressively more weary from lack of sleep, the images get more and more bizarre. To keep them at bay, I think. And in the span of this tenday, my thoughts have revolved around one question: _Why_?

I feel like the pawn of some cosmic theatrical tragedy, performing for the twisted enjoyment of the Elements. Where have They been in all of this? Why am I the object of their sick games, and allowed to live while the rest of my race perished in Fire? I wonder again why ch'Rihan was destroyed in the first place. Why didn't the Vulcans follow through with their promise to save our world? Is that why my husband turned on the very organization whose praises he'd happily sang back home? This course of thinking naturally brings me back to grieving, which I've had just about enough of. To break the repetitive cycle, I put my mind to something productive: solving the issue of what is to become of my son and I.

Where in this universe we'll go, I have no idea. But, much as I am frightened and repulsed by the idea (the opinions of my husband and father were not necessarily shared by me), I feel the only option open to me is the Federation. They have a reputation among the galaxy for welcoming diversity among their members; other governments are not so accepting of other races. I only hope they will look past my relationship to a war criminal.

To prepare myself for the plea for citizenship I plan to make upon reaching the starbase, I turn from my grieving and my thinking and set to work mining the _Enterprise_'s databases for any useful information that might help my current situation. Despite being the daughter of a politician who made it his business to become fluent in Federation policies, I know next to nothing about this alliance of hundreds of alien species. So far, my efforts have not been fruitful, mostly due to the incomplete translation matrix onboard. Many of the words are not rendered by the in-ship text translator, making it difficult to discern even the topics of many articles. In the back of my mind, I make a mental note to brush up on my Standard. If I am too be living among these people (I shudder involuntarily), their incomplete translators will quickly become inadequate for every-day living.

After a long, unsuccessful search of _Enterprise_'s in-ship computers, I move to the Federation interwebs, and even then all I manage to discover is the Federation's fascination with trivial news. The web pages are filled with stories of intergalactic celebrities, disappearing house pets, and other unrelated and entirely uninteresting garble, occasionally interrupted with a small bit on politics and economics of the different worlds. And nearly all of it is unrenderable by the translator.

As I am scrolling through the media, an article catches my eye that is (what a surprise) not sufficiently translated, which is ironic considering the topic. The title, one among millions, announces the discovery of a lone Romulan woman deep within Federation space.

I lean back in my seat, a wry smile twisting my lips, positive that the 'Romulan' they refer to is me, and stare at the article for a while. It is not that I'm curious to read about myself; while I was hardly in the limelight on ch'Rihan, being the daughter of a Senator with opinions like Nyril did catch the eye of the public media. Being in the news is no large shock for me. No, I stare at this article because the politics behind it are some that even I can relate to. In my situation, an article with anything even remotely familiar is a welcome sight. At this point in my race's history, and even up to the time of its destruction, Rihannsu rarely dared to cross the Neutral Zone. A crossing of that cold space would be just as remarkable in my time as it is now. My father was pushing to open even tentative communications with the Federation when ch'Rihan was-

I don't follow that thought to it's conclusion, quickly deactivating the computer screen before the waterworks can begin. Perhaps familiar is not as welcome as I thought. I lean forward, letting my head fall into my hands, feeling a stinging sensation at the corners of my eyes and willing the tears not to fall. It is at this exact moment that one of the aforementioned bizarre images pops into my mind: Nero and Nyril, bounding across a snow-covered Neutral Zone hand in hand, carrying a large sign between them that reads "We Come In Peace".

I decide I have finally had enough and make for sickbay, leaving my sleeping son in the cradle by the desk, and praying Doctor McCoy will have a sleep aid to ensure a restful, dreamless sleep.


	4. Float On

**This...has been a long time coming. My apologies to people who were waiting so long for this. ;_; Real life has a habit of getting in the way of things. D: This chapter is long, so I hope it holds you for a while. I'm not sure when I'll get the next chapter up, but know this: I will NOT let this story rot. I will finish it, no matter how long it takes. You have no need to worry. C: **

**Also, I changed the title of this story to "My Immortal". So far, all my chapters have been named after songs, and the same was true for the title. I realized "My Immortal" fits the story better than "Bullet Proof Heart", hence the change. :D**

**I do not own Star Trek, blabbity blabbity blah...my disclaimer is out of the way, on to the story!**

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><p><strong>Mandana:<strong>  
>I step out of my quarters into the stark white corridors of the Enterprise. Even in the ship's early morning, they glow blindingly bright. The effect is unnerving. I tuck a stray hair behind my ear and hurry off down the hall, keeping my eyes down. I pass many personnel on my way to sickbay and I feel their suspicious, untrusting eyes on me. That, too, is unnerving, though quite expected. I am one of the enemy. I must be watched.<p>

It takes only a few moments to reach sickbay, and I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding as the doors swish shut behind me. My heart is pounding in my side.

_Dear Elements, if this is how I react every time I am near an alien, how will I ever live among them? _I wonder.

I tell myself that I am more on edge because I'm on a starship. Were I not on a vessel lightyears from the nearest solid ground, I would not be so tightly wound.

"Can I help you, miss?" asks a nurse I haven't met before, stepping out from one of sickbay's adjoining sections. She wears the regulation white dress, her brown hair pulled back into a tight bun.

I open my mouth to ask for Doctor McCoy, but remember what time it is and realize he's probably not on duty at this hour.

"I haven't been sleeping well. Do you have anything I could take for that?" I say instead. The nurse stares at me for half a second, looking me over. Her stare is comparable to those questioning, suspicious looks I received in the Enterprise's halls. Finally she nods.

"Of course," she answers curtly. "Come with me." I follow her into an adjoining pod, where she opens a drawer filled with hypo capsules. She shuffles them around, lifting them up and checking the labels, until she finds the right one. I stand off to the side, uncomfortable in her presence.

"I thought I heard someone come in," Doctor McCoy says as he strides into the room, giving me a friendly smile. "I'll take it from here, Nurse." I am grateful for his interruption, and mildly surprised that he is on duty. I'd seen him just hours before.

The nurse nods at him, sets down the capsule she pulled from the drawer, and with a last look in my direction, briskly walks out of the pod.

"Shouldn't you be off duty?" I ask impulsively, then snap my mouth shut. He picks up where the nurse left off, snapping the capsule into a hypo.

"Shouldn't you be in bed?" McCoy answers, smiling so I know he's joking.

"That's why I'm here," I say, and lean against the biobed behind me.

Of all the humans aboard the vessel, McCoy is the least uncomfortable to be around. Perhaps it is because he is the one I spend the most time with. He stopped giving me distrustful looks my first night in sickbay. Strangely enough, I find myself enjoying his company. Then again, maybe I just like spending time in a place of healing. During my pregnancy on ch'Rihan, I frequented small clinics rather than the large medical complex. It's been so long since I've stepped into a large-scale medical facility. I hadn't realized how much I've missed it.

"To answer your question, I'm on call for the next few nights. Means I stay here for sixty hours, then I'm off duty for a whole twenty-four. We have rotations. Every doctor and nurse staffing this sick bay goes on call at least once a month."

I tilt my head and arch an eyebrow. "And your sick bay is more efficient this way?" It seems to me that having a doctor work for sixty hours would decrease their productivity and make them more prone to mistakes. "On call" is something unheard of on ch'Rihan.

"Well, if we didn't go on-call, the sick bay'd be understaffed. See, we're still a pretty new vessel. Not all our permanent personnel have come aboard. And besides, it's a good idea to have someone in sick bay all the time. That way there's always someone who knows what's going on, instead of a gap between shifts."

"Oh," is all I say in response. There is a momentary lull in conversation.

"How's Oren?" Doctor McCoy suddenly breaks the silence and steps across the room, hypo in hand. I eye the capsule, my eyes flitting over the label.

"He is well. I am envious of his ability to sleep for long hours. Is that doxylamine?" I nod toward the hypo in his hand, hovering over my arm. I cannot read the text, but the molecular graphic on the capsule is universal. "Do you have anything stronger?"

McCoy's mouth lifts into a smile. "Yes, but you don't need anything stronger. This'll work just fine."

I shift my arm so the hypo is not directly above it. "Doctor, that dosage wouldn't knock out an infant. It's far too mild."

"Really," he sounds amused, and rolls back on one heel. "Where'd you get your medical degree?"

"Rihannsu Imperial Academy of Medicine," I answer matter-of-factly. He blinks and stands up straight, clearly not expecting an affirmative answer.

"Well," Doctor McCoy glances at the hypo in his hand, then looks back up at me. He wears a funny expression, a mix of suspicion and disbelief on his face.

"Try soporaline," I suggest, hoping the translator sufficiently renders the word. "The regular dose for an adult Rihanssu is 250 milliliters, but seeing as I have a child to care for, my dose should be half that."

McCoy looks mildly surprised, and I believe I have, for the most part, convinced him that I am indeed a doctor. He takes the hypo of doxylamine and returns to the medicine drawer, albeit a bit hesitantly.

"You're closer to your Vulcan cousins than I thought," he says as he replaces the capsule in the hypo. "125 milliliters of this is a regular dose for a Vulcan."

I nod. "That sounds about right."

He returns to my side and I obediently offer him the underside of my arm.

"So you're an expert on Vulcan physiology as well?" he asks.

'Doctor mcCoy, in the time I come from, communications between Vulcans and Rihanssu are considerably more open. At least, in the field of medical science. It is where our two peoples find the most common ground," I look upwards at the ceiling. "Politics are another matter entirely."

I fell the slight sting of the hypo in the crook of my elbow, and McCoy straightens up. His previously very expressive face is now flat. He catches me watching and offers a smile that doesn't reach his eyes.

"Well then, Doctor t'Keras. You're free to go. Sleep well."

I thank him and leave the sickbay, puzzling over his reaction to my explanation. It is not until I am back in my own quarters, hovering on the fringes of sleep, that I realize I referred to the Rihanssu—my Rihanssu—in the present tense. Thankfully, darkness overtakes me before the tears return, and I drift off into my first restful sleep since ch'Rihan's destruction.

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><p><em>Nero pulled through, of course. On paper, his reason for survival was an abnormally strong immune system. But according to his sister, Adyrra, he didn't die simply because he knew he <em>couldn't_ die. In the weeks after the operation that saved his life, I snuck Adyrra up to Nero's room countless times after-hours. It was during these visits I learned much about House Keras. Often the woman talked to her injured brother as though I weren't in the room, bringing up topics I felt I wasn't supposed to hear, but she made no effort to hide. And when he was awake (towards the end of his hospital stay, that was quite often), he didn't try to correct her (though Nero didn't ignore me as Adyrra did during these visits; in my efforts to look like I wasn't eavesdropping, I saw his eyes flick my direction on more than one occasion)._

_The family had a rocky past, and an even rockier recent history. They grew up on a resource planet called Udauru, at least a light-week from ch'Rihan. What the main resource of the planet was I had no idea, but from the professions chosen by the s'Keras siblings—he, a miner, and she, a geophysics teacher—I guessed it had something to do with rock. At one point, the family had been quite large and prosperous. Theirs was one of the few Houses rooted on a resource planet that did not have Ship-Clan ancestors._

_And, though the exact tragedy that decimated s'Kera's numbers was never named, I got the feeling it was similar to what had befallen Nero. Over half the family (cousins, aunts, uncles, and other siblings) had died, and the fortune they'd amassed over several generations was suddenly lost._

_Left with little other choice, Nero and Adyrra both left Udauru and came to ch'Rihan where, after a mandatory period of service in the Fleet, became quite successful in their respective careers. And then this bit of misfortune had left Nero, one of the few remaining males in House s'Keras, near death. The lack of family presence the night Nero was brought in suddenly made sense, as did the need for him to survive. House Keras was in very real danger of dying out._

_But, by the grace of the Elements, Nero made a full recovery in the span of thirty four days, though extensive physical therapy was needed if he ever wanted to be a completely mobile Rihanha again. Unfortunately for Nero, this meant the next mining tour his ship took would be without him. The physical therapy plan I had prescribed for him would keep him in Mhiessan for a good four months._

_It was not my job to inform Nero of the treatment; after saving the life of one considered a lost cause, I'd gained considerable respect in the eyes of the other doctors on staff at the medical complex. I was now seen as someone who deserved to work there, instead of having caught a free ride to an expensive profession on my father's influence. However, the miraculous healing of Nero did not mean everyone at the complex staff accepted me. There were those, mainly technicians and nurses, who had aspired to become doctors but funds and House influence kept them from achieving their goal. They saw me as a slap in their faces. I doubted they'd ever see me as just another of the doctors. They went out of their way to make life miserable for me at the complex, and I was content to give it right back. Sometimes without meaning to._

_The technician I assigned to relay the news to Nero of his temporary medical leave from work did so grudgingly. The task was not one dreaded, like taking on a mortally wounded patient; it was merely one I didn't have time for, and something he didn't want to do simply because I was the one ordering him to do it. Nevertheless, the tech delivered the news to a soon-to-be-released Nero, telling the miner that he would be taking a mandatory medical leave from the Mining Guild for at least four months. Needless to say, Nero didn't take the news well. I learned that he'd bloodied the face of the tech who'd relayed the news, and in the end had to be sedated. The tech escaped with a broken nose, and I felt a small surge of gratitude towards Nero for the small bit of indirect incident set his release back another few days, but that was the only consequence he received._

_After his release, I thought that would have been the last I saw of House Keras. I could not have been more wrong. Three days later one of the nurses informed me he'd dropped by the complex, asking for me. Though she didn't say outright what his motivation was, the mischievous glitter in her eyes and the barely suppressed smile on her lips told me what I needed to know. I remembered back to the nights Adyrra and he spent talking, the way his eyes would seek me out in the furthest corner of the room._

_I ignored the message. But every other time he entered the medical complex for the appointed physical therapy treatment, Nero made sure to seek me out. Always I managed to make up an excuse to avoid him, but somehow he knew exactly where I'd be at any given time. In desperation, I switched my hours at the complex from a day shift to a night shift. I hoped the miner would get my message that I was not interested in whatever proposal he had to offer, but I'd underestimated the strength of Nero's stubbornness. He either couldn't take a hint, or was too prideful to quit. He kept coming._

_In one last attempt to get the miner off my tail, I took a day off from work and chose to run the weekly __errands myself, as opposed to chartering the servants of my apartment complex to do them for me. The time spent in the market place of Mhiessan was relaxing, though there was hardly a corner I turned that I didn't expect Nero to be leaning nonchalantly against the side of a building or vendor kiosk. He seemed to anticipate my movements so thoroughly that it wouldn't have surprised me. But the chores went uninterrupted, and with the daily work done I retreated to my apartment for a quiet night. "Apartment" was really the wrong term to describe my living quarters; it implied small, and plain, and, to an extent, poor. My home was quite the opposite. It stretched over one entire floor, a large flat covered in fine carpet and hung with expensive replicas of famous Rihannsu art. Lavishly upholstered furniture dotted the rooms. To many, the real selling point would have been the the stunning view from the windows, offering a magnificent panorama of Mhiessan, the mountains that surrounded it, and to the west, an unobstructed look at the ocean._

_Not to me. Every curtain in the apartment was drawn; the only flat available in this building had been on the fourth floor, and that was far too high for my liking. I didn't want to freeze up with irrational fear every time I passed a window, so I blocked the view and pretended I wasn't twelve meters off of the ground. And those windows remained tightly shut, as there had been no reason to open them since moving in._

_That night was a calm one. I was curled on my sleep couch, reading a fictional text in the soft light of a single glow lamp. I was so engrossed in the story that at first I paid no mind to the quiet tapping on my window. I thought it was just rain. But as the tapping continued, I remembered it was the fifth month in ch'Rihan's thirteen-month year, and precipitation in this season, while not unheard of, was so unusual the public news media would have made sure to mention it in the tenday forecast._

_As the strange tapping persisted, I turned off my reader and looked up at the couchroom window, the one with the brilliant view of the city skyline. The tapping came in groups of three: tap tap tap, pause, tap tap tap, pause, and so on. I frowned, dropped my reader on the couch, and crossed to the window, debating whether or not to open the curtain. The tapping was too regular to be a shower of unpredicted weather, but I was four stories in the air and couldn't figure out what else it could be._

_So, with the tapping not ceasing and my curiosity overcoming my absurd fear of heights, I threw open the window. And screamed at the shape that jumped into my apartment _through_ that window._

_"You are an impossible woman to get a hold of," Nero said, straightening out of a crouch and glancing around the apartment. His look of mild frustration turned to one of appreciation. "You have a lovely home."_

_I floundered for words, pressed as close to the apartment wall as I could get without becoming a part of the wallpaper. "What in the names of Fire and Earth are you doing here?" I shouted at last, narrowing my eyes into a vicious glare. "Get out!"_

_He turned a calm eye to me, appearing totally relaxed in the middle of my couchroom, with no obvious intention of leaving. "I just got here."_

_At that moment I was remembering the miner's violent reaction to the news that he wouldn't be returning to his ship for its next tour, and wondered just how mentally stable he was. Surely no sane Rihannsu would go around bursting into people's apartments unannounced, and through a window, no less! My surprise at his sudden appearance quickly turned to fear._

_"I believe the accident affected your head more than I initially thought, tr'Keras," I snarled, keeping my voice angry as I straightened up and pulled my shoulders back. I was tempted to use the man's firstname, highly unorthodox and bordering on insult when used between barely acquainted Rihanha, but I refrained. Elements only knew he'd take such an action the wrong way. "I am not familiar with the customs of _your_ people―" I had not meant to use such a blatantly arrogant expression, but my tongue slipped under the stress of the situation. I pressed my lips tightly together, hoping I hadn't angered the miner._

_Nero raised his eyebrows. "My people?" he said, and laughed. "I am unsure whether you refer to Rihannsu employed in the Mining Guild, or those who have immigrated from resource worlds, but it makes little difference. Our customs are not so different."_

_"Really," I said bluntly, casting a furtive glance at the main entrance to the apartment, past Nero's shoulder. He showed no signs of leaving, and I would just as soon not be left alone with a man of questionable sanity. I began to inch towards the door in the most inconspicuous way possible. "As far as I know, jumping in to people's homes via a fourth story window is not a common practice on any world in the Imperium, unless the one enters with intent of theft. Now get out of my apartment, or I will scream, have you arrested, and sent to rot in an Imperial prison cell."_

_Nero smiled at that. "I would like it to be noted that this is not the normal course of action, nor is it the preferred option. But it was impossible to get a hold of you at your place of work. "_

_"And so you thought that the best way to talk to me face-to-face was to scale the wall of my apartment building and jump in through the window. There is such a thing as a 'door,' tr'Keras." I told him, taking another small step towards the exit. "In any case, I thought I'd made my position perfectly clear. I am not interested."_

_"Interested?" he seemed genuinely confused for a split second. "Is it wrong for a patient to see his doctor?"_

_My glare deepened, and my mouth twisted into an exasperated frown. "You ceased to be my patient, under my care, when you were discharged from the intensive care wing. I am a busy woman and do not take responsibility for outpatients. If an appointment was so important to you, there are hundreds of clinics in Mhiessan—" I took another step as I spoke. This time Nero shifted his body, effectively putting himself between me and the door. If I wanted to get out, I'd have to slip past a seven foot Rihannsu whose mental stability was in question. I suppressed an irritated and somewhat fearful expression and wondered if now was the time to scream. I opened my mouth to do just that, but he cut me off, talking a bit louder and faster than was needed._

_"But I needed to see _you_. After all but resurrecting me, I felt it necessary to thank you in person."_

_"So you thank me by breaking and entering," I said flatly, my eyes locking with his. Up until that moment, I had been unsure of his intentions. I only assumed he meant me harm. But when our eyes met, something in them made me believe the miner's words. Perhaps it was the naivety there; for a man who had to be well into his thirties, he possessed an innocence I found…shocking. I was absolutely positive then that he wouldn't hurt me. The feeling was strange. But I still wanted him out of my flat._

_For the few seconds that I stood frozen, fully understanding the sincerity behind his words, Nero realized I was still not charmed by his unannounced arrival. He bowed low to me, holding the position_

_a few seconds longer than I would have thought necessary. And, in a ridiculous gesture that was far too formal for the situation, took my hand in his and pressed my fingers to his forehead. I felt heat rise in my cheeks and could imagine the dark shade of green they had turned, for a display such as this was often reserved for those much higher on the political food chain. A Praetor, or an actual Senator. Not the daughter of such dignitaries. I was left speechless._

_Nero straightened after five seconds. Those five seconds had stretched to an eternity and beyond. Then, with a crooked smile, he released my hand and jumped back out the window. Involuntarily I rushed to the sill, momentarily forgetting I was deathly afraid of heights, and peered down into the inky black night. I hated to admit I was curious to see how Nero had scaled the wall of the apartment complex._

_But by the time my eyes adjusted to the darkness outside, the man was already gone, having disappeared under the canopy of trees in the complex's gardens. I frowned and withdrew my head back into the apartment, then shut the window and latched it firmly. If my fourth story window proved so easy to get in and out of, that could become a problem in the future. I highly doubted any patient of mine would go through the trouble of hailing a ride here at such an hour and scaling my wall simply to say, "Thank You" in an incredibly overblown way. I had not seen the last of him._

_Trying to shake off the sudden feeling of uneasiness, I threw the curtain shut over the window and retired to my couch. I needed a nice, long sleep before tackling this problem. I'd deal with it all tomorrow, and that would include a nice, long talk with the complex's head of security._

* * *

><p><strong>Jim Kirk:<strong>

I sit in my personal quarters, staring at the weathered face of a man in his sixties. The Starfleet officer on the computer screen wears a stiff grey and white uniform bearing admiral's stripes over a pair of broad shoulders. He is balding, with only a crown of grey-white hair encircling the back of his head. The man looks the part of every admiral in any movie I've ever seen, right down to the hard blue eyes that glitter with the fire of someone much younger. Even after a good year and a half of dealing directly with the man, I still squirm in my seat when held under Admiral Dessel's stare.

I force myself to sit still, which, at this hour, is easier than usual. The Enterprise's chronometer is synched with that of the Federation capitol, established in Paris, France. One o'clock in the morning there is the same as one o'clock in the morning on the ship. But, at Starfleet headquarters in San Francisco, it is only five in the afternoon. Convenient for Dessel, exhausting for me.

"I'm sorry to be contacting you at this hour," the admiral says in a voice that gives no hint whatsoever as to his supposed remorse, "but I needed to talk to you personally as soon as possible. Tell me, who all knows the supposed origins of the Romulan?"

"Only my chief surgeon and I," I answer. Dessel grunts in response.

"Keep it that way. We don't need one more reason for people to be suspicious of her," he says.

Ever since the Earth-Romulan war years ago, the Federation has been untrusting of any and every Romulan. Nero's actions against Vulcan only ingrained those suspicions deeper in the minds of Federation citizens. And though doings of the Romulans are controlled by the minority (politicians and, in certain cases, rogue miners), everyone seems to believe that _all _Romulans will happily commit such atrocities against them. Though I am still partial to this prejudice, I can't see Mandana anywhere near as ruthless as her husband. Watching her burst into tears after delivering the news of Nero's fate convinced me she did not fit the common stereotype of her kind.

However, Bones is the only other person on Enterprise who shares my sentiment about Mandana. I fully agree with the admiral about keeping her relationship to Nero a secret. But I had already decided to do that. Dessel contacting me at one in the morning, ship's time, to deliver this order is completely unnecessary.

"Admiral, with all due respect, you didn't call me to discuss default protocol surrounding a refugee, when a representative will be seeing me in less than two days to discuss the exact same thing. What's this about?" My last word is distorted by a large yawn that I am unable to stifle. Dessel's thin lip twitches upward into an amused smirk that fades quickly into a straight face. He straightens in his chair and clears his throat.

"As you know, since Vulcan's destruction, the Romulans have, essentially, backed off. Fewer patrols along the Neutral Zone—along the Trianguli quadrant, they've all but abandoned their outposts. Subspace has also fallen silent on their side, and what tidbits we do pick up are easily decoded and contain no noteworthy intel. They may as well be conversing the weather. Our sources within the Star Empire have given us similar results: mindless chatter between the Senate and Praetorate about interplanetary politics, economics, etcetera. No mention of the Neutral Zone, or the Federation, or the Klingons, for that matter."

I feel my exhaustion ebb a bit. The Romulans have had their eyes on the Trianguli quadrant for some time. It would give them a tactical advantage over the Federation, should war ever break out between the two parties again. That they would abandon it after years of pursuit seems odd. The Neutral Zone is also a sore spot for them; it's common in everyday conversations. That they would stop mentioning it completely raises red flags. "Sounds like they're trying to appear as unthreatening as possible, and prove that they didn't support Nero's actions," I say. Dessel nods.

"Starfleet's thoughts exactly. But it's not in a Romulan's nature to just withdraw and lay low."

"You think they're are planning something?"

"Yes." Dessel responds, and leans forward, lacing his fingers on the glass desk before him. "But, until just a week ago, we didn't have any proof."

The admiral pauses here, staring intently through the screen at me. I frown slightly, but say nothing. He continues.

"Thirteen days ago, a cloaked vessel crossed the Neutral Zone into Federation space. The cloaking device faltered for just a fraction of a second, but one of our patrol vessels got it on the scanners. At the speed it was traveling, in the direction that it was traveling, it seems like it would have been very close to the site of the scorched evac shuttle."

My frown deepens. I take a moment to process his words before responding. "You think Mandana is an agent of the Star Empire." The idea that she could be an Imperial agent is so laughable I have to bite down hard on my tongue to keep from scoffing. "Admiral, may I remind you of the state we found her in? Injured, dehydrated, heavily pregnant...she doesn't sound like a candidate for a Tal Shiar agent."

Dessel leans back in his chair. "The Romulans are crafty. They've used better disguises in the past. From the images and descriptions of the shuttle you sent Fleet, it looks like the damage could have been inflicted by a third-party vessel. It's not necessarily the aftershock of a supernova."

I am already shaking my head. Perhaps it's because I rescued her, held her hand, saw the sincerity in her eyes when she told McCoy and I everything, but Dessel's story holds about as much water as a bucket made of air in my eyes. I open my mouth to protest further, but Dessel holds up a hand to stop me.

"We can't prove anything yet. This evidence is merely circumstantial. We'll need to get a better look at the shuttle before we draw any conclusions. We have assigned the U.S.S. _Carter_the job of further investigation." the admiral finishes.

"Well, thank you for that, admiral. I will certainly keep an eye on Mandana." I say, almost testily, reaching forward to end the transmission. Being kept from my bunk to hear such a laughable accusation from the top dogs at Starfleet has rubbed me the wrong way.

Dessel eyes me, and I wait for some sort of reprimand, but it doesn't come. The admiral only nods and says, "Do that. And report anything unusual. Dessel out."

Dessel's image winks out, replaced by the Federation logo: two olive branches encircling a group of stars. I reach forward and turn the screen off, just as the intership comm beeps. I suppress an irritated hiss and flip the back unit on, audio only. I hope this conversation doesn't last long.

"Bridge to Captain Kirk," Spock's voice floats through the speakers.

"Kirk here. What is it, Spock?" I ask, suppressing yet another yawn.

"I am sorry to disturb you at this hour, Captain, but we are picking up a distress call from the planet Natala," he says in an inflectionless tone.

"What?" I blink and look up. After their homeworld's destruction, the remaining individuals of the Vulcan race settled on an arid desert planet located by Ambassador Spock (known mostly as the Ambassador, so as to avoid confusion with my first officer). Hearing of Natala's distress call takes me back a year ago, to a filled auditorium in Starfleet Academy's Nimitz hall, where admiral Barnett delivered the news that Vulcan itself had asked for help...

"...some sort of grain-eating native insect," Spock is saying as I come out of my reverie. "As of yet, they have been unable to synthesize an antivenom to counteract the effects of the insect's potent toxin. The call is low priority, but it is not too far off our current course. It would affect our ETA at Starbase Seven by three hours, but we are the closest starship in the quadrant." his sounds calm as ever, but I know Spock. His decision to stay in Starfleet instead of going with his father to Natala to help establish a society there has haunted him. This cry for help, no matter how minor the actual issue may be, will eat away at him.

"Then set a course for Natala and inform Starfleet of our course change. The representative at Starbase Seven can wait three hours," I say. There is a pause.

"Thank you, Captain," Spock answers. I wonder if the note of gratitude I hear in his monotone voice is a trick of my tired ear.

"Yeah. I'm turning in now. Wake me when we get there," I tell him, and switch the comm off before he has a chance to respond.


	5. Hero

**Mandana:**

It is the sound of my son's cry that jerks me awake. No vivid nightmares, no black dreams. How refreshing. I sit up in the darkness and stretch my arms over my head, feeling the tension of the past many days leave my body. I feel…rested.

Oren's persistent wail chases the last of the sleep from my bones. I stand and cross to his makeshift crib, tucked away in the alcove of the room. I pick up the screaming infant, hold him close to my chest, and rock him back and forth. His cry is neither wet, nor hungry. A bad dream, perhaps? I sigh.

"Have the nightmares found you, too?" I whisper to him, gently rubbing his back. The infant's cries gradually subside and he snuggles closer to me. How lucky he is to forget such terrors so quickly. I hold him for a while, waiting for him to fall back asleep, but Oren has other plans.

Now wide awake, he reaches up and grabs a lock of my hair, then promptly stuffs it in his mouth. Despite the dim light, I can see him smiling broadly up at me, his brilliant eyes shining playfully. It is obvious he isn't going to let me go back to bed.

"I guess we've both slept long enough," I coo, touching his nose with my finger. The infant giggles, a warm, bubbly, beautiful sound.

"Lights," I say, and the fluorescents overhead flicker on, bathing the room in soft white light. I return to my bed and sit on the mattress's edge. How long did I sleep, I wonder? At least a few hours. Surely by now it must be morning on the starship _Enterprise_.

No sooner has the thought passed through my mind then the screen atop my desk flickers to life, displaying the face of a young human in command gold. I stand, Oren still in my arms, and approach the computer.

"Attention all hands, this is a mission update," the young officer says. His accent is so thick that the translator has difficulty rendering his words. I twist the screen to face me and turn up the volume, curious about the nature of the report.

"The _Enterprise_ will be making a short detour to the Vulcan colony of Natala, to assist them with a local life form that has been giving them trouble. We will not deviate far from our present course and should be back underway in a matter of hours. Details may—"

I flip off the screen, unimpressed by the mundane report. The effort to decipher the computer's poor translation does not seem worth it for the information I would glean. I'm not sure what I was hoping for, but I didn't find it. I return all my attention to my son, content just to play with him and watch him smile.

Half an hour passes and the report is nearly gone from my mind when the ship's alert goes off. I learned from the first time the _Enterprise_ went on red alert that an infant and a wailing siren do not mix—Oren's scream rivaled the volume of the shrill klaxons—and requested of the captain that it be disabled in my quarters. The alert was merely a routine drill to keep the crew on their toes, but even if it had been a real emergency, such a keening sound was unnecessary for a refugee mother and her newborn. The warning light alone would suffice. Now, the amber beacon fills my room with a sickly light, pulsing to a bell I can't hear.

There is something familiar about this light. I remember it. My mind flashes back to the night of my rescue, when I had first been rushed through the _Enterprise's_ halls. In my state of exhaustion, wracked by pain and weakened by dehydration, I did not retain much of what happened that night, and the few memories I have are a blur. One thing, however, is a constant among my foggy recollections—the amber light. Not a call to battle stations, but a medical alert.

An unpleasant feeling worms its way into my brain, a nagging sense of foreboding. _Medical alert, local fauna, Vulcan colony._ This feeling is a long shot, but I know it won't let me be until I prove to myself it's as ludicrous as it sounds.

I set Oren back in his crib with a mumbled promise to only be a minute. I then queue up the young officer's mission update on the desk screen. It picks up where I left off.

"—may be accessed in the mission log." His image freezes onscreen as I pause the replay and search for the log he referred to. I find it without too much trouble and quickly scroll through the detailed report. It lists the shore party the captain has picked out—himself; his first officer, Spock; Doctor McCoy; and a handful of assorted science personnel—as well as a brief summary of the trouble Natala is experiencing. The more I read, the more I realize that my unlikely fears have been proven.

_And,_ I think, _they will turn to the logical solution to this problem. The wrong solution._ I jump out of the desk chair. I hate to leave Oren while he's awake, remembering my own horrid fear of being left alone, but lives are at stake. I dart out into the hallway, following the flashing amber lights to sickbay.

The "local life form" the officer referred to is not local to the Natala system at all. It isn't even local to Federation space. The Rihannsu called it _ssidhwavr_, or "tiny death". The _ssidhwavr_ were discovered on a resource planet in the early years of the Imperium's expansion. It is a small bug, no bigger than a grain of wheat, and about the same color, too. Their venom mimics the symptoms of anaphylactic shock, a reaction found in most humanoid races. But to treat the bite like anaphylaxis rather than a virulent toxin is a death sentence. A handful of established Rihanssu colonies were lost before the doctors realized this.

The epinephrine used to treat such reactions interacts negatively with the venom, speeding up the effects rather than slowing them down, and killing the victim in minutes. An antivenin is needed to save the victim, and a sedative is administered to keep the patient stable until said antivenin arrives.

But the _Enterprise_ doctors don't know that.

I burst through the doors into sickbay. The wide open space I know is a hive of frenzied activity. At the back of the room, I can see a pale, shaking form lying on a bio bed, eyes closed. His face is hardly visible, but I can make out features through the controlled chaos of the swarming medical team. _Spock_. The monitor above the Vulcan's head registers his rapid, irregular heartbeat and accelerated but shallow breathing. I am not too late.

McCoy stands over Spock, hastily slipping a capsule into a hypo. I can't make out the label, but I would bet my life it's epinephrine.

"Doctor!" I must shout over the intense voices of the medical personnel to be heard. He looks over his shoulder at me.

"Mandana?" I've caught him off guard. His face registers confusion, but not for long. He turns back to his work, hardly a second wasted on me. "This isn't a good time!"

I push my way through the nurses and grab his arm before he can press the hypo to Spock's neck. "You can't give him that!"

He shakes my hand off and glares fiercely at me. If looks could kill, I'd be a pile of ash on the floor. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Doctor, you have to listen to me," I say in a rush. "This isn't an allergic reaction, it's the venom from the bite. I've seen it hundreds of times before. If you give him the epinephrine, he _will_ die. A sedative will buy you time to synthesize the antivenin."

Doctor McCoy's face doesn't change as he moves to brush me aside again. He doesn't believe me. Desperate, I say the only thing I can think of to get him trust me.

"Soporaline worked fine for me," I say, praying to the Elements he'll remember what I told him in this sickbay only six hours prior. There is a tense moment of indecision on McCoy's part. The pause lasts for only two beats of Spock's racing heart, but it feels so much longer.

"Nurse, get me 125 cc's of soporaline," he barks at last, focus returning to the patient lying on the table. Nurse Chapel looks stricken.

"Doctor—"

"Just do it!" McCoy growls, setting the hypo of epinephrine on a tray beside the biobed. A few seconds later the hypo of soporaline is in his hand. The doctor hesitates for a fraction of a second and looks at me from the corner of his eye, perhaps realizing what he is about to do. Then he presses the hypo to Spock's neck; the Vulcan twitches as the sedative is released. Instantly, all eyes turn to the board above Spock's head. It seems that lifetimes pass before his heart rate begins to drop. I release the breath I didn't realized I'd been holding, fell the tense muscles in my body relax, and look up at the doctor.

_It worked_. He is clearly stunned that my solution saved the life of his commanding officer. I wonder, then, if he is so surprised, why he followed my advice in the first place? The reason doesn't matter. He trusted me, and Spock will live another day because of it. That is, if they hurry and synthesize the antivenin.

McCoy is already on it, shouting more instructions into a com beside the Vulcan's bed.

"—have that antivenin up here in ten minutes."

My work is done. No doubt the _Enterprise_ has a state-of-the-art chemistry lab, and will have the antitoxin up in time to save the Vulcan's life. I nod to McCoy, though I doubt he sees me through the swarm of nurses and techs and other doctors, and slip out the sickbay doors unnoticed.

I am halfway down the corridor when I hear someone call my name. I turn, and see Nurse Chapel hurrying my way.

She stops a few steps away from me, and her smile is genuine.

"Thank you," she says. "I don't know how you knew that, but—"

"I saw many cases like it on ch'Rihan. A common sight in an emergency room," I reply. Chapel looks surprised, much like McCoy did when I told him a few hours ago.

"You're a doctor?" she asks. I nod, and she continues.

"Well, that explains...that," she says, nodding back at the sickbay doors. "I've got to get back, but thank you again, so much, for saving Spock's life. Really."

I recognize the intensity in her eyes, the sincere gratitude written all over her face. _She loves him_. My heart aches with this realization. Will I ever reach a point where I am not reminded of my late husband everywhere I go? Chapel has already left, hastening back to a post she probably wasn't supposed to leave.

And I move on back to my own room.

* * *

><p><em>Weeks passed, and I saw no more signs of Nero. He never sought me out at the complex anymore, nor had there been any further unannounced intrusions in to my apartment. I found I enjoyed working night shift at the medical complex, and opted to stick with my current schedule. Life went on. Seasons changed, and the rains finally came to Mhiessan, making my nightly commute to work cold and miserable. I loved the water, but the chill reminded me of frigid space and stark starship walls. The weather was uncomfortable to start with, but when the rain turned to sleet, it became wholly unpleasant. <em>

_I traveled to and from the medical complex on the _yhfi-ss'ue_, the predominant form of public transportation in ch'Rihan's cities. An automated system of five tubes mounted on rails carried commuters to and from the city center, operating at all hours of the day. I would have preferred a hired flitter, but they didn't run late at night or early in the morning, when my work schedule demanded them. The _yhfi-ss'ue_ got me where I needed to go; I could handle a small bit of unpleasantness._

_It was an unremarkable night—cold, wet, and windy—when I approached the station. Said station was no more than a slab of cement supported by metal struts at its four corners, set alongside the track. There were benches beneath the roof where Rihanssu waiting for transport could sit, shielded, for the most part, from the weather. Normally, there were many empty benches, as the day workers had taken an earlier tube and were now warm at home. But on this night as I approached the station, I could see most—if not all—of the benches were occupied. Rihanha huddled together under the station roof in an attempt to stay warm and dry in light of Mhiessan's current inclement weather. _

_I sighed, and my breath condensed into a cloud before my face. The rain would turn to snow soon, I had no doubt. The thought of the season's first snowfall would have excited me, normally—it had been ages since this city had seen snow—had I not been standing out in it. Other after-dark commuters, nightly regulars I often chatted with as we waited for the _yhfi-ss'ue_ to pull in, began to arrive. Realizing there was no more space beneath the cement canopy, they clustered together just outside the station and cursed whatever unfortunate event had left the small terminal so packed, all hoping a tube would show up soon and whisk the crowd away. I steeled myself against the cold and hoped right along with them._

_"There's an empty seat over here, miss," a voice informed me from beneath the station's roof. I looked up through the downpour and suppressed a groan. _Of course_ Nero would be here, at this station, offering me the only empty seat beneath the shelter. And here I was, thinking optimistically (for once) that he'd given up on me. I gave him a scathing look. _

_"If you don't stop following me—"_

_"Relax," he said, "I'm not following you. The evening train's just late. I already thanked you, remember?"_

_I continued to eye him distrustfully._

_"Hey, if you want to freeze to death out there, be my guest. Might be a while though. There's ice on the tracks. Every tube'll run late tonight."_

_This man infuriated me, and I stubbornly set my jaw and crossed my arm's over my chest in a vain effort to keep out the cold. I had my mind set on not taking the seat he offered. But as time passed, the sleet turned to snow, the wind picked up speed, and still the tube did not come. Finally, I'd had enough. I swallowed my pride and sat down next to Nero. The bench was so packed our legs touched; I did my best not to notice._

_I expected a victorious smirk or comment from Nero, but the miner said nothing. In fact, he ignored me completely. That was fine by me._

_More time passed; the people under the roof grew restless, many of them using personal readers to call home or work and inform their families or employers that they were going to be late. I debated whether or not to call the medical complex with Nero sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with me. _

_Then I realized how paranoid and stupid I was being. Sure, it'd been unnerving how he'd pursued me, but since that night in my apartment, I hadn't seen any sign of him, and that incident had been over a month ago. He was acting completely normal now. If it weren't for him leaping into my couchroom—_

_"Is it common for you to risk imprisonment just to say 'thank you'?" I asked him. Nero turned to me, looking mildly surprised that I'd initiated conversation._

_"It's not every day you're brought back to life. I couldn't just let that go."_

_"So you decided to stalk me."_

_He snorted. "It was your physical therapy plan. I just dropped by the front desk and asked for you whenever I showed up."_

_"You knew where I lived. You had to have followed me home at some point."_

_"One of the nurses at the desk gave me your address."_

_"What?!" I whirled around to look at him, fixing him with an intense look. "They just gave it away!? To _you_?"_

_"Yeah, I didn't even have to ask. She just outright gave it to me," he met my stare. "I got the feeling she didn't like you very much."_

_My mood turned black at this enlightening piece of information. I hadn't imagined one of the nurses would sink so low as giving out my address to strangers. Or overly thankful patients. "Do you remember who it was?" I asked, running through a list of people at the complex who hated me most. Nero just shrugged and looked towards the _yhfi-ss'ue_ track. _

_"They all look the same, if you ask me. Dark hair, dark eyes, white uniform. Probably couldn't pick her out in a line-up."_

_"Well, then. It seems you aren't entirely guilty," I said, deciding there was nothing I could do about the mysterious narc. "There's still the matter of you jumping into my apartment, though. Speaking of which, how did you even get up there? It's not like you brought a ladder."_

_Nero grinned. "Not at all. There's a drainpipe beside your window."_

_"You climbed up _that_?" I asked, picturing the thin pipe in my mind's eye and wondering whether to be scared of his ability, or impressed. _

_"Wasn't a problem. The _Narada_—my ship—has very little in the way of catwalks. Often times, to reach a trouble spot, you've got to forge your own path. I've had plenty of practice."_

_"As your former surgeon, I feel I should scold you for putting your body through so much before it was ready. That's what the physical therapy plan was for."_

_Nero looked sheepish. "In hindsight, it wasn't the smartest move, but again, you were impossible to get ahold of."_

_"I'm flattered you would put yourself at risk just to say 'thank you'," I said dryly. Nero laughed out loud. _

_"And I'm glad you aren't reading too far into that anymore," he answered. "Shall we start over?" _

_He held out his hand, a form of greeting we naturally suspicious Rihanssu shared with the Federation. Given our distrustful nature and our politician's tendencies to murder their fellow legislators, the gesture was meant to show that, quite literally, we had nothing up our sleeves. I smiled just slightly and took his offered hand._

_"Mandana t'Verraet," I told him, shaking it firmly. "_Jolan tru_, Oren tr'Keras."_

_"_Jolan tru_, Mandana," he returned the greeting and dropped my hand. "But please, call me Nero. Oren was my father. And my grandfather."_

_"Something wrong with the name?" I asked. He shook his head._

_"Nah. I just like to fool myself into thinking if I change my name, I'll do something original with my life. My father and his dad might as well have been clones, working with rock their whole lives," he explained. I raised an eyebrow. _

_"And how's that working out for you?"_

_"Well, as you saw, it's going splendidly. Not only do I work with rock, but I work with rock _in space._" His voice dripped with sarcasm. I smiled. _

_"It's a temporary arrangement," I told him. He laughed again._

_"That's what I said when I got the job. And now here I am, years later, not simply a miner on a ship, but _first officer_ of said ship."_

_I blinked in surprise. "First officer? But…you're, er…"_

_He looked at me from the corner of his eye. "So young?" I nodded. "Yeah. I guess rock is just in my blood. I'm a natural. As I said, this name-change is purely for my own psychological well-being. It has no basis in reality." _

_The sound of a train rumbling on its tracks nearly drowned out his last words. Both Nero and I looked up as the _yhfi-ss'ue_ glided into the station. A cheer rose up from the nearly-frozen crowd of Rihnha. The snow was no longer blizzarding, as the wind had died down long ago, but it was coming down hard and the temperature continued to drop. Nero stood._

_"And that's my train. Good night, Mandana," he bowed to me again, not nearly as low as the time in my apartment, but still ludicrously formal for the setting. And I said so._

_"Get going," I said to him, my tone light. "You look ridiculous."_

_His smile was infectious. "Yes, ma'am," Nero replied as he straightened out of the position and hurried off to catch his train._

* * *

><p><strong>Jim Kirk:<strong>

"I could have you court-martialed for this, Bones!" I shout at my medical officer as I pace the conference room. McCoy watches me from his seat at the table, jaw clenched.

"I took her advice, and Spock is alive because of it. Is that a crime?" he asks. I whirl around and slap my palms down on the table's surface.

"You didn't know it would work. You didn't know if Mandana was actually who she said she was. Maybe she's not a doctor at all! She could have _killed_ Spock, McCoy!"

"But she didn't, and if it weren't for her, Spock _would_ be dead," he says, voice calm as ever. "So would hundreds of Vulcans on Natala. She's not her husband, Jim."

I stand there, staring hard at nothing, collecting my thoughts. "It was an awful big coincidence, those bugs were. How convenient it was to have a Romulan doctor onboard when a problem cropped up that only a Romulan doctor could solve."

McCoy eyes me suspiciously. "And your point is…?"

Dessel's call a few hours prior leaps to the forefront of my mind. I figure McCoy has every right to know about its content. "Before our course change to Natala, I received a call from Admiral Dessel. Thirteen days ago a cloaked vessel was detected crossing the Neutral Zone. According to the patrol vessel that caught the slip up, the ship's trajectory would have put it very close to where we found Mandana."

My medical offer narrows his eyes. "You're suggesting she's a spy." He does a poor job at keeping his disdain out of his voice. "How can you say that? You saw her, Jim. You listened to her. Romulans are good infiltrators, but they aren't _that_ good. Need I remind you how we found her? Half dead and heavily pregnant?"

I sigh. "I didn't believe it when I first heard it either, Bones, but now…this business with the bugs…doesn't that seem a bit too convenient to you?"

"If there are Romulans at work anywhere in here, Jim, Mandana isn't a part of it," McCoy answers matter-of-factly. "If anything, I think she's a godsend. We've been hurting with an understaffed sick bay for a while, and that Vulcan specialist we were promised still hasn't arrived. Mandana has knowledge of their unique physiology that I can't match."

"She's a Romulan, not a Vulcan, McCoy. And you can't be entirely sure she is a real doctor, if all you've got to go on is her knowledge of sedatives."

"Then test her! My point is, I trust her," he explains. "If she says she's a doctor, after what she pulled in sick bay, I believe her. And I certainly don't see her fitting the profile of a Tal Shiar agent."

"The Tal Shiar do not always use agents that are aware of what they're doing. We've seen them use brainwashing before. It is entirely possible this whole thing is a trap."

"She knew knew things—things no Romulan could possibly have known—about Nero. We never released his image, or specs on his ship, or anything else other than his criminal record."

"And we have no idea what Nero did before escaping the Klingon prison planet. We don't even know how long he was there for. Maybe he went home first, who knows."

"Well," McCoy says, leaning back and crossing his arms. "If she doesn't know Nero, explain Oren."

"We have no way of proving if he actually is Nero's son—"

And here McCoy leans forward, smiling. "Ah, but we do. When the Ambassador was marooned on Delta Vega, Nero left behind supplies. Spock's death would have ruined his whole plan. Among the supplies left behind was a jacket, bearing a command insignia for an officer in the Romulan Mining Guild. It undoubtedly belonged to him. And of course, clothing is a gold mine for DNA. All the stuff left on Delta Vega was kept as evidence, even though it wasn't entirely necessary, bless you meticulous Starfleet types. It may be difficult, but not impossible, to prove Oren is indeed Nero's son, and Mandana is who she says she is."

"Even if you managed to pull that off, it wouldn't mean there isn't a connection between her and the Tal Shiar," I say. McCoy opens his mouth to protest again, but I start talking before he has the chance. "Good grief, Bones, it's not like we're going to imprison her. We'll just send her back across the Neutral Zone, safe and sound. What would you rather we do? Keep her on the _Enterprise_?" I ask him.

"It would be nice to have someone onboard who knows their way around a Vulcan's circulatory system, yes," McCoy answers. I stare at him in disbelief.

"Are you serious? Even if you proved Mandana _is_ who she says she is, it'd be foolish to keep her on _Enterprise_."

"If Starfleet believes her to be an agent, then the _Enterprise_ would be the perfect place to keep her. We'd have a much easier time keeping track of Mandana without letting her know we were on to her. And in the meantime, she'd be an asset."

There is no derailing Bones. I switch tactics. "Maybe she wants to go home. Even in the future, the Federation and the Empire aren't exactly best buds. If I were her, I'd prefer to go back home rather than settle down among my enemies."

"Would you, though?" McCoy asks. "It'd be like one of us being thrown back in time to the end of the Eugenics War. Earth doesn't sound too appealing, and I doubt Romulus does to Mandana, either. We can offer her asylum; doesn't mean she has to take it. It'd just be nice to give her the option."

I sigh. It's still hard for me to believe that Mandana is a Romulan agent. I'm not sure about her staying aboard my ship, but I can see his point about a past home not being…_home_. It couldn't hurt to give her the option of sanctuary.

"I see your point, Bones, and I tend to agree with you. But I've got my superiors to answer to. I'll be sure to bring up the topic when we meet with the representative later, " I assure McCoy, careful to make no other promises. "Until then, whatever medical advice Mandana gives you, please don't take it. Dismissed."

* * *

><p><strong>This update should have been out months ago. I sincerely apologize to all my readers for the months of waiting. Ya'll feel free to kidnap me and torture me as you see fit; Elements know I deserve it. School and work are piling up. I'll try to have the next update to you by Christmas. optimist author is an optimist**

**Also, it is incredibly evident that I am winging it with all the medical jargon, and I would like to make a special apology to all those people well versed in the art of medicine out there wondering where I'm pulling my information from. This is my first time writing a character in the medical field and I'm trying my best, but I'm clearly failing in the technical department. ^^:**

**And in other almost-related news…HOLY SHIT NEW STAR TREK TRAILER AAAAAAAH.**


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